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Soft proofing client approval

10-01-2007, 05:53 PM

Hello all, Just wondering if anyone is using any kind of soft proofing server applications like Agfa's Delano or DALiM DiALOGUE to have clients view and approve jobs online. I have been asked to research this service for a few of our clients, what are the pro's and con's ?. For me, any job's that are color critical would fall into the Con category because i would have no control on how their monitor performs on their end, but i have a lot of packaging jobs that are spot color only and having the client approve for content and graphic positioning would fall into the Pro category seeing that they have to approve color draw downs for each spot color from the ink department. My rep tells me soft proofing online will be a standard in the next coming years, what's your take?

I work for a hi-end litho offset shop and we use creo Insite. It has been wonderful for all the jobs that are ran to density which are quite a few that pass through the shop quickly. The others that require color proofs, the client still uses the soft proofing to ensure the documents are good before running proofs. That is not the case all the time but we do have customers that appreciate the service. It offers online chat, color seperations, and the client can view the traps.

Since it has been implemented in our department a year ago, we have increased productivity and it has helped to mainstream the existing soft-proofing process.

Flashcrafter

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We have special pricing for our OnTimeProof system going through the end of the year. It gives you a full unlimited online soft proofing system and job submission with job ticketing and workflow automation for an unbelievable price.

I'd love to give you an online demo so you can see how it works, you can even install it for a free in-house fully functional trial!

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We are a publication printer and have had dalim for about 2 years but we are going to be switching to delano shortly. We have ApogeeX, and delano supposed to work better with it. Also I believe dalim uses their own pdf rip were as delano uses adobe's pdf rip, which should mean fewer errors with customer pdfs. We have ran into problems where a page will not go through dalim but the same file would run through ApogeeX with no problems. I'm just a peon so I have not had a chance to try out delano yet but it sounds like it will fit our needs better.

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Thanks for the input everyone, Peon and all, i just had a live VIP demo of Delano at an Agfa seminar yesterday up here in Montreal. I gave them 3 different jobs to test, the file were in between 45 and 20 mg ( i am all packaging ) they seemed to fly through and with the Stream Proof option clients can make annotations, view separations, view portions at 300 dpi to check traps and so on. Without Stream Proof all my clients would have to purchase Acrobat Pro and i don't think that would fly. Can you all tell me how much of a time saver with clients and your csr's and sales people this service saves, from what i have seen i think this could cut a lot of the floating time out so that jobs don't become panic for no reason.

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Hi, there is much talk about soft proofing, which is essentially technology that lets you view the proof remotely. The real value comes from controlling the proofing and approvals workflow process over all. This is about managing graphics projects, and in particular, your proofing and approval process using workflow to drive who see's what, which people are involved in the approvals loop and who has to perform what task (legal review, marketing review, brand manager review, printer review - and final approval). I have seen many soft proofing technologies, but the real value comes from reducing review cycle time, reducing number of proofs required and creating a platform that allows all to communicate in a controlled collaborative environment - this approach makes it easy for users, and crates value to all. Customer using a printer with such a system will get more work (because you make it easy), Account managers will be spending more time selling rather than being on the back foot continually participating in print post-mortems. So look at remote proofing technology but in the contexts of workflow (business process workflow - not production workflow). Furthermore, I do believe monitor proofing works fine - out putting to a monitor vrs a substrate is just a discussion about the output meda format. Both can be calibrated. Running both side by side creates unnecessary complications do one or the other. However, remote monitor proofing will only work when there is discipline in the supply chain, usually monitor proofing only works when the print buying company drives this and "tells" the suppliers to drop in line. As you can guess, this is our business, and we have deliver solutions to great effect.